IS&T announces extension of VMware Enterprise License Agreement and availability of new products

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Information Services and Technology (IS&T) recently negotiated an extension to its VMware Enterprise License Agreement through the end of 2013. Under the terms of this agreement, all members of the MIT community are entitled to unlimited use of VMware Workstation and Fusion desktop products, available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux platforms, as well as VMware's server virtualization product line, vSphere.

IS&T has also added two products to its Enterprise License Agreement: vSphere Enterprise Plus and Site Recovery Manager. vSphere Enterprise Plus provides additional capacity and scalability over the previously licensed version of vSphere, as well as integration with Cisco, EMC, and other data center products. Site Recovery Manager provides an automated framework for developing, testing, and performing disaster recovery for virtualized environments. Both of these products are available immediately to the MIT community for unlimited use at no cost.

The Power of Virtualization Virtualization software enables the creation of “virtual machines” preinstalled with software that can be distributed to others. Through virtualization, departments can deliver specialized software to students in a course, or individuals can run a second operating system on their computers. Virtualization software can also be used in data centers for server consolidation and effective management of IT infrastructure.

Since December 2007, when MIT's VMware Enterprise License Agreement was signed, VMware desktop products have been downloaded over 9000 times and more than 20 MIT departments, labs, and centers (DLCs) have used vSphere to power over 1500 CPUs of VMware virtualization systems. Interest in these products has been strong across both administrative and academic areas, as well as affiliated research units such as Lincoln Laboratories. Those departments that originally received licenses for the previous version of the server product line, Virtual Infrastructure 3.5, are entitled to upgrade to vSphere 4.0 at no cost and are encouraged to do so.

Within IS&T, virtualization has been a major initiative. Started as a pilot project in the fall of 2006, virtualization is now a core feature of IS&T's data center strategy. By the end of September 2009, more than half of the systems centrally managed in IS&T data centers were virtualized, and this number continues to increase. Over 20 racks of space and 150 kilowatts of power have been saved, providing additional data center capacity for co-location and research purposes.

Virtualization is also playing a major role in the ongoing rollout of the Microsoft Exchange email and calendaring service, and will be key in the upcoming migration of MIT's SAP ERP environment to Intel/Linux servers. In both cases, IS&T is leveraging the technology to provide greater hardware utilization, redundancy and recoverability in the event of failures, and reduced operating expenses.Downloads and Licenses VMware desktop products can be downloaded by any member of the MIT community from the VMware Distribution Site. To request licenses for VMware server virtualization products or for more information about MIT's VMware Enterprise License Agreement, send email to IS&T's VMware Team.

Getting Help Community members who need assistance with VMware desktop products (Workstation and Fusion) can send email to the IS&T Computing Help Desk or call 617-253-1101. For help with VMware data center products, contact the VMware Team.